Railway industry

“ The first result of the swarming of thousands to the West was a demand for new railways, to open up plain and prairie and mineral range, and to make connection with East and West. The building of the railways in its turn gave a stimulus to every industry. As in the early fifties and early eighties, this period of rapid railway expansion—much longer, however, than previous periods—was {183} an era of optimistic planning and feverish speculation. ”

“ It is said that the advantage of production on the largest scale by a single corporation in place of production by a number of smaller units is being verified by the experience of nearly every important trade and industry. The principle has been recognized in the history of railway development in this country by the amalgamation of large numbers of small railways into the great railway systems which we now see, and it is argued that a further step should now be taken in the same direction. ”

“ It was ingenious, clever, scientific, and all that; but railways were commercial enterprises, not toys; and if the atmospheric railway could not work to a profit, it would not do. Considered in this light, he even went so far as to call it “a great humbug.” “Nothing will beat the locomotive,” said he, “for efficiency in all weathers, for economy in drawing loads of average weight, and for power and speed as occasion may require.” ”

“ Along such lines there always had been large traffic, and it was no doubt greatly stimulated by the facilities which the new mode of locomotion afforded for its expansion. But as fresh railways were completed, and as the capital invested in them increased, the profits receded. Even at the present time, with larger receipts per mile than have ever been taken, the position of railway investment is almost from every point of view, unsatisfactory. ”

“ This is a difficult problem, but when enough big men give it attention it will be solved. It probably means more elasticity, more inter-changeability between train service and the various kinds of maintenance, between the locomotive and the shop, between the railway and allied contiguous industries. ”

“ With ninety million busy people In this country the next twenty years must see a constant addition to the railway facilities of the country if the commerce is to be moved satisfactorily, and the railway-user must see to it that the railway-owner has sufficient margin to justify the enormous additional investment that must be made in order to provide the needed transportation. ”

“ The certainty which we now possess that the action of any railway company, whether it be wise or foolish in itself, is wholly commercial in its motives and its aims, is a valuable safeguard. But if railway policy were to become the medium for the promotion of social or even economic theories under the guidance of politicians, would not this be a most alarming peril to trading and industrial interests? ”

“ The railway companies, too, have considerably improved their permanent ways, constructed heavier rolling stock, while the contrivances for controlling and maintaining the trains in check are of the most perfect description. ”

“ Considering, therefore, that not only the ability necessary for the general management of a railway, but the intelligence and vigilance requisite at every station and on every portion of the line are found practically to increase according to the demand, and vice versâ, it is evident that nothing would prove more fatal to the public as well as ruinous to proprietors than to split an efficient remunerating great railway into two or more inefficient and unremunerating small ones. ”

“ The reasoning which applies to the Times and to State Papers, applies to newspapers generally, and to the distribution of the prices current of merchants, and of magazines, monthly [85] publications, and bulky parcels of every description. Without railway facilities they would probably never have been circulated at all. Certainly they never could have been circulated to the extent necessary to make them profitable. Hence, the railway, as before observed, is the greatest engine for the diffusion of knowledge. ”

“ At first it was assumed that competition in rail transport would be assured, and the dangers in question proportionately reduced, by different carriers using their own locomotives, coaches and carriages on the railway lines, which alone, it was thought, would be owned by the railway companies constructing them. In some of the earlier railway Acts there was even a provision that the railway companies could lease their tolls, as turnpike trustees were doing. ”

“ It is clear that our railroads have been capably managed, and that the resources and powers entrusted to them are being used to the highest business advantage. How the money they spend is being employed is shown by the fact that our railroads move 272 ton miles of freight per dollar of net revenue, where the United Kingdom shows only 58, Germany 172 and France 88. For honest and efficient conduct our railways have no equals in the world. ”

“ The present greatly increased efficiency of the railroads as compared with 1920, their greatly improved credit, and their present prosperity, are, in large measure, due to the advances made toward introducing the improved instruments of rail transportation which have become available. ”

“ The railway-owner can go no further in using larger tools in his plant and must depend for any further economies upon an improvement in the work of the railway-user and the employee in using that plant. If the railway-user fails to load and unload the cars promptly, if the railway employee is careless and inefficient, the railway cannot be used to its full effect. ”

“ The American railway lines of those days had, generally speaking, been constructed as cheaply as possible by the private enterprise which—though with liberal grants of land and other advantages—alone undertook their provision, the main idea being to supply a railway of some sort to satisfy immediate wants and to improve it later on, when population and traffic increased and more funds were available. ”

“ It is doubtful whether the aggregate plant used in all manufacturing industries can equal it in value. The capital engaged in banking is but a trifle beside it. The world's whole stock of money of every kind—gold, silver, and paper—would purchase only a third of its railroads.
Yet these facts by no means measure the whole importance of the railroad in the modern industrial system. The business methods of to-day are in one sense the direct result of improved means of transportation. The railroad enables the large establishment to reach the markets of the world with its products ”

“ They have to face competition and to cater for the markets, while railway companies, being both the producers and consumers of their wares, can afford to choose their own way of manufacturing them. In addition to this, the heads of small firms usually have an interest in the concern whereas the managers of railway works are otherwise placed; it makes no difference to them what they spend or waste, and they are always able to cover up their shortcomings. ”

“ The railway-user needs safe and adequate transportation, and it will be furnished just so long as the business pays. The railway-owner cannot constantly be borrowing money for every minor improvement and addition to the property. The cry is sometimes raised that the railways should not make improvements out of current earnings. ”

“ The waggon building department of Camden is worth visiting, especially by railway shareholders.
Every one is interested in railways being worked economically, for economy gives low rates and increased profits, which both increase trade and multiply railways. Hitherto the details of carrying, especially as to the construction of waggons and trucks, have been much neglected. ”

“ The balance is built and operated on private right of way, and goes around, rather than through, the cities. The tracks are standard gauge and of standard railroad construction, were, at the time they were laid, of higher class than those of the Southern Railway Company in the same territory, were intended for handling substantial interchange freight traffic in connection with steam railroads, have the same ruling grades as the latter in the same territory, and are of 80-pound rail. ”

“ These scattered bits of road here and there were, in after years, as the possibilities of railroad development began to dawn upon the minds of far-seeing men, united by connecting links and reorganized into roads of much greater length. In fact some of the most difficult features of the railroad problem of the present day grew out of the failure of projectors of railroads{435} in the early days to grasp the meaning of the system which they were instituting. France, Germany, Belgium and other European cities have had no serious railway problem. ”

“ One operator, after being forced for years in this way to sell his product to the railway mining company at a very low price, was obliged to build a railway of his own in order to reach other lines of railroad and so have a fighting chance for cars. ”

“ No less than shippers in the prompt loading of cars, can those who receive freight conserve railway service, and therefore the national wealth, by promptly unloading shipments received in carloads, and by promptly removing their freight from the station sheds when it comes in less than carloads. Carelessness about this is one of the evils at which the railways in former times connived under stress of competition. ”

“ Railroads are not like stages or steamboats, which, if furnishing no profit at one place, and under one prescribed rate of transportation, can be taken elsewhere and put to use at other places and under other circumstances. The railroad must stay, and, as a permanent investment, its value to its owners may not be destroyed. ”

“ The railway system is a vast employer of labor, directly and indirectly, and several million persons in the United States derive their support from the various railway industries, without taking into account such allied industries as rail mills, bridge works, locomotive works, and car works, etc. ”

“ CHAPTER VI. RAILWAY RECEIPTS, WORKING EXPENSES, AND PROFITS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM—DELAYS AND ACCIDENTS.
However vastly the United Kingdom has been benefited by railways, we shall show presently that it is far otherwise with those who have invested their money in their construction. Those first opened in England were, no doubt, profitable to their shareholders, because they were great arterial lines that connected the leading places of the Kingdom together. ”

“ The company might be merely the owners of a highway and toll takers for the use of it by other people with their own carriages and locomotives. That state of things would be worked out by the railway company possessing the mere line of railway from end to end, and by the persons making use of it, buying or renting contiguous land whereon to keep their rolling stock, and have their offices, availing themselves of the powers of Section 76 of the Act of 1845, and getting on to the railway by means of sidings connected with the railway. ”

“ We believe it may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, that the working details of a railway are invariably well executed in proportion to their magnitude:—that, for instance, in the management of the London and North-Western Railway the arrival and departure of trains are better regulated at their large stations than at their small;—that their great manufactories are better and more economically conducted than their little ones;—that the arrangements of Messrs. ”

“ The railways are entitled to confidence and relief because they have displayed efficiency in the conduct of their business. This is just as marked as their relatively low capitalization. The figures already given show an increase of traffic in a year about five times as great as the increase of equipment and eleven times the increase of mileage. Yet the machine has been hauling its load, because efficiency has been developed. Heavier rails, larger engines, cars of greater capacity, increased train movement and the full utilization of equipment have kept business moving. ”

“ It is over three times the annual gross revenue of the railroads, and it amounts to nearly one half of the existing railway capital represented by stocks and bonds. The question of obtaining the $8,500,000,000 necessary to make railroad facilities equal to the expanding traffic of the country during the next five years, therefore, constitutes the most important problem now confronting business men. ”

“ In the United Kingdom, however, the ownership of the railways is distributed among a far greater number of persons than is the case in the United States, where the control and the dividends of a great railway system may alike be in the hands mainly of a few financiers. ”

“ Its influence has grown steadily with the growth of competition by water and motor, with the growth in the size of the individual railroad system, with the growth in the dependence of railroads for their revenues upon long-haul freight traffic and with the growing length of the average haul. ”

“ After the early companies had got their Acts and obtained their land they still, as railway pioneers, had to bear the expense of some very costly experiments, of which railways constructed at a later date had the advantage. ”

“ In France the railways owned and operated by the State are only a comparatively small section of the whole; but successive Governments have advanced immense sums for railway construction, and the State guarantees the dividends of the companies; while in France as in Germany railway rates are controlled absolutely by the State. ”